The Way Things Change
by The Darkness Factor
Summary: A three-day business trip becomes a five-month long ordeal for Pepper Potts. Set during TDKR, post-IM2, pre-Avengers. Tony/Pepper, Selina/Bruce.


**The Way Things Change**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Iron Man or the Dark Knight trilogy.

* * *

Her throat hurt.

Actually, scratch that- _everything _hurt. There was a throbbing pain behind her eyes, in her muscles, in her feet (why did she wear heels again?)— if it was attached to her body, it ached. There was a wildfire in her neck. She almost groaned in pain when she swallowed, forcing saliva past her vocal cords. How'd her throat gotten like that, anyway? Had she screamed at Tony for being stupid again?

There was a conversation occurring not two feet from her. She registered that both participants were women and that both were arguing. Most likely it was about her. Probably had something to do with the reason she felt like absolute crap. Again, her mind went to Tony being stupid.

"She can't stay here."

"C'mon. I found her half-dead in a gutter, it's a wonder she wasn't raped or something. We give her some of our clothes— she looks about your size, right?— and no one will know the difference."

"They'll know, Jen. Even the dirt-eaters— even _they _watch TV."

"So?"

Pepper can tell that the woman with the deeper voice is struggling to not let her frustration show. "_So _she's going to have a target on her forehead. What do you think this revolution is about, anyway? I'm surprised Bane didn't use her as leverage against Iron Man or something."

"I thought you said his vendetta was more personal than just superheroes."

"It is- wait, no. Jen, we are _not _talking about this right now. The point is: she can't stay here."

"She's been hurt because of something we helped make happen. Selina, please— we _know _what it's like."

Pepper's mind raced to decipher the conversation. Suddenly, everything— location, situation, statistics- it all came back to her. The only thing she was missing was her physical status. That she could easily test out, but not without alerting her hosts that she was awake. Well, they'd find out sooner or later…

She wiggled her fingers and toes- a bit of pain, but nothing indicating anything seriously wrong. Pepper Potts, Co-CEO of Stark Industries, at least didn't have any broken bones. She forced her lids up (they'd been sticky with crust) and blinked in order to get her surroundings into focus. The blond woman didn't react to this motion, but the brunette's eyes snapped to hers with alarming speed.

"Welcome to the world," she said in a dry tone, almost completely different from the blunt, serious one she'd used before. Pepper narrowed her eyes at her and decided that she didn't like this woman much. "Please note that we don't have any vacancy here, so we'll just send you on your way for the time being—"

"Selinaaaa," said Jen, rolling her eyes and cutting Selina off. Pepper thought that she was looking at college roommates for a moment and almost snorted.

The brunette gave a world-weary sigh. "Fine, fine. I'm Selina Kyle. This is Jen. As you may have heard, she found you half dead in a gutter. A simple thank-you will suffice."

Pepper wanted to snort, to match Selina with some kind of sarcastic comment— the kind she came up with the parry Tony's on a daily basis. But now the memories were beginning to return; she didn't know if she had been near a gutter when the mob attacked her, but most likely Jen had saved her life.

She opened her mouth to say thank you—

And nothing came out.

* * *

After several hours of sitting in the armchair in silence, sipping hot cocoa and staring out at the dreary street of Oldtown, Pepper put all the pieces together. She still had no clue how to move forward from there, but organizing her thoughts had always been an excellent method of calming down (it was used to the point of exhaustion during her short stint as the only CEO).

And calming down was very much a necessity.

It was supposed to be a simple business trip: go to Gotham City, discuss a business proposal with newly-instated Wayne Enterprises CEO Miranda Tate and return to LA in three days' time. The first day had been smooth: she met Tate and Lucius Fox, found both people to be agreeable and pleasant and enjoyed the different feel Gotham had.

Then day two: her meeting with the board, interrupted before it began by a masked mercenary who sounded like Darth Vader. Three members were needed, he said. Tate and Fox were necessary, but she volunteered without hesitating, already making mental arrangements to somehow get a hold of Tony and inform him of the situation.

Then everything went to hell: the simultaneous revelation of the nuclear bomb, the trapping of the entire police force underground and the truth about deceased District Attorney Harvey Dent. She'd watched that particular broadcast from the room where the board members were living in Wayne Tower, alongside Tate and Fox. Fox's head had fallen into his hands, but Tate's expression was indeterminable. Pepper just remembered feeling disgusted.

That had been shortly after a frantic phone call to Tony, warning him to stay away.

"I doubt Bane and his followers would be happy to see Ironman trying to save the day. Let's face it, Tony— you can't _be_ inconspicuous."

She wasn't sure who'd hung up on the other, but hoped against hope that the message had gotten through.

Then… she'd left the Tower. For some reason that she couldn't even recall. It was then that she got the snot beaten out of her.

The enormity of what had happened to her hit her with the force of a ton of bricks. Her throat closed up (_haha_, she thought). She was suffocating—

"You don't mind taking the couch, do you?" asked Jen. Her eyes were oddly bright— almost blinding, Pepper thought. "Sorry if it's…"

She forced a smile, pencil already scratching on the pad of paper. _It's just fine._

* * *

It was on her third day of recovery (day five of Bane's occupation of Gotham) that she remembered exactly why she left the safety and seclusion of Wayne Tower. Pepper hated herself for being so dependent, but she gingerly made her way over to Selina and wrote:

_May we go to the cemetery? I need to visit a grave._

Surprisingly, Selina just nodded.

Reverence for the dead was one of the few things that remained constant after the 'working-class takeover' as the GCN was calling it. The graveyard remained untouched by violence insofar as Pepper could see, for which she was grateful. She thought that the headstone was a bit too grand for her friend, but appreciated the gesture made by whomever had it commissioned.

Eight years ago, one of her best friends had been interred there after being trapped inside an exploding building. Pepper was never able to go to the funeral, being too busy working for Tony Stark.

"I heard about her," was all Selina said. "Rachel Dawes. We thought she'd be our saving Grace, in a way. Stupid idea."

Pepper wanted to slap her. One look at Selina's pinched expression told her that that would be a bad idea, so she strode quickly past the brunette to the exit. She never knew why Selina lingered for a few more minutes and she never thought to ask. It was one of the subjects that they never spoke about.

* * *

As though sensing that that one trip outside would only bring a craving for more, Selina unexpectedly offered to tutor her in self-defense. Pepper had almost face-palmed at the time— why had she never thought of that before? She accepted almost at once. Being the girlfriend of a high-functioning superhero meant that such a skill could be useful in the future.

So there she was— dressed in a ragged sweatshirt, sweatpants, and (weirdly enough) stilettos. Selina was clad in a similar get-up. Pepper was almost relieved; the stilettos were familiar territory. Everything else was a disguise: something to fool people into believing she was just another middle-class woman and not the co-CEO to a major corporation.

"Reason being," Selina began, "is that if you can fight in heels, you can fight in just about anything." She gestured for Pepper to make a move. "Come on. Let's see what you got."

* * *

The first time that Pepper met Jim Gordon was purely by accident.

She and Jen had been sent to pick up groceries. Selina told Jen that she'd be 'out', giving her roommate a strange look when she did. Jen just saluted, muttering, "Aye-aye, captain."

They were walking down the snow-dusted block, Pepper rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm herself (she missed the Malibu weather) when someone brushed against her shoulder. Her eyes reflexively followed the hunched over form. Her memory was considerable; she was required to juggle a million problems at once with Stark Industries. It didn't take much wracking of her brains to figure out who he was.

_Commissioner Gordon?_ she typed into her texting window and showed it to him. At mention of the man's name, Jen yelped and tried to tug her along but Pepper resisted, refusing to budge.

He turned to face her and she was immediately struck by the weary lines in his face. And she thought _she_ had to deal with high stress levels. Pepper briefly contemplated brushing it off as misplaced recognition; his tired eyes said it all; but found herself plunging onward: _I'm sorry. I work for Tony Stark— Iron Man— and he wants to know what the situation is here. He has a habit of worrying about these kind of things, only this time it's worse because he can't do anything about it…_

The man was gawking at her by now— maybe because of what she'd told him, or maybe because of the speed with which she was texting on her Blackberry. Pepper had quickly grown accustomed to communicating via typing words into her phone. It was something that disturbed her, though she still had issues with opening her mouth to say something and getting that awful pain in her throat that reminded her that she couldn't.

_How can I adapt so fast?_ she'd asked Selina one day.

"Because you have to," the woman replied curtly. She'd known that Selina wasn't the best choice to talk to about her problems, but for some reason it helped this time.

Commissioner Gordon began speaking slowly. "I can give you some information— but not here," he added quickly when she began typing a response. He began heading towards a darkened alleyway.

_Go on, _Pepper told Jen. _I'll be fine._

Jen just nodded.

The oh-so-wonderful hideout of the remaining GCPD was the backroom of a drugstore. Pepper had to refrain from snorting when she figured that out, wondering how many drug deals had probably been conducted there in the past. The police present looked up in surprise when she came in, but experience with being stared at had her holding her head high.

"Everyone," announced Gordon, "this is, ah…"

_Virginia Potts, _she texted, showing it to him. Her nickname was more well-known, so she figured it was safer that way.

He repeated it for the others' benefit. "She works for Tony Stark."

Silence. The announcement was met with dull looks and indecipherable glances at one another. There were no words for just how uncomfortable it made Pepper feel at that moment; she shifted from foot to foot and began a silent rundown of the different martial arts forms Selina had shown her that week. It had become a nervous habit of hers.

"Sorry," Gordon murmured to her, "but there's only room for one hero in Gotham."

Ah, yes. The Batman.

He'd been all over every news station when Pepper first arrived at her hotel. His sudden reappearance after eight years had sparked a plethora of questions among all inhabitants of the city. He'd become something of a legend in that time, with many speculating that he never existed at all. The fact that he returned after being accused of going on a killing spree that ended with Harvey Dent's death could not have been a good omen, many people said.

Two days later, Bane took the entire city hostage.

Pepper was not satisfied by all of the explanations she heard through the grapevine. She _knew _that Harvey Dent's death had something to do with Rachel's. For her own peace of mind, she hoped to find out exactly what.

"They're transporting the bomb in armored, lead-lined trucks," Gordon was saying. "There are several decoys. We're working on a way to get a tracking device onto the real one, but it'll take time and supplies that we don't yet have. Unfortunately, they're not going to be smuggled here for another few months at least."

_What's the damage to the city? _Already her practical, analytical side was coming forward. It was comfortable. It was familiar. Pepper felt like she was slipping into her old skin and realized just how idle she'd been for the past few weeks.

"They've come up with a 'court system'," he explained. "Delivering 'justice' to the wealthy. They choose their own sentence: death or exile. Death means getting shot then and there, in front of a hundred witnesses. Exile means walking across the ice on the river. As far as we know, no one's ever made it."

Pepper could only stare as he described the depraved condition that the city had entered. In the back of her mind, she knew that it could really happen anywhere, but it was still terrifying to hear about. She projected a calm exterior, nodded occasionally and didn't react when he told her the number of dead that they'd found.

She saw that they all knew what this so-called 'revolution' was: a way to show the true ugliness of humanity. One of the policemen spat on the ground.

"The Joker would be proud," he muttered.

* * *

Pepper texted Tony once a day, using the code word 'Strawberry' to show him that it was really her. They'd set up that system after her initial call to him the first day of the occupation. She was glad that they'd agreed to only text one another then; she didn't want him calling, only to find that she wasn't able to talk to him.

She refused to think about what would happen when she finally did get out of this mess. And she _would _get out. They would find a way out, Gordon had reassured her, even when he broke the news that the bomb was running on a timer. She'd given him her number and asked for him to call if he ever needed help.

_Bored…_

_Deal with it, _she texted back.

_I can't stand it, Pep :( This meeting's making me fall asleep. Seriously, can't I just blow that Bane guy up?_

_No, you cannot._

_Why not?_

_You know why._

Her official reason was this: there were at least a million people on this godforsaken island and she was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that Iron Man's appearance would spell immediate death for every one of them. They'd know that Iron Man was an expert in dealing with terrorism. They'd know that he didn't show mercy to their kind.

The truth? She didn't want to die. She didn't want Tony to die, either.

_Miss you._

_I miss you too._

Not for the first time, something as simple as that exchange made Pepper close her eyes, willing tears away. She controlled her breathing until it was once again regular, shooting glances at her companion to see if she'd noticed. She almost sighed when she saw that Selina was staring straight at her.

_I'll talk to you tomorrow, _she texted to Tony before looking expectantly at Selina.

Oddly enough, Selina Kyle was the one who caught onto the meaning of her looks the fastest. Pepper still wasn't sure she liked her, but found herself respecting the tough personality and the way Selina still never failed to knock her flat on her behind even after two months of hand-to-hand training.

"That your boss?" Selina asked, nodding her head at the Blackberry.

Pepper could've made some snarky comment about how the Blackberry was not, in fact, her boss— but that was the sort of thing she said to Tony. Instead she typed, _Not exactly. We're partners._

That caused an eyebrow to shoot up. "Huh. I'd always heard stories about the famous PA to Tony Stark. Never heard that they became partners."

_It's a new thing for me as well. _Business partners, sexual partners, lovers, boyfriend-girlfriend— she couldn't really name what they were. They just _were. _They always had been, long before the events at the Stark Expo years before. Sometimes she thought that the media was still in shock that Tony Stark would share power so willingly.

"I once knew a billionaire," said Selina. "Well, scratch that: I've known a lot of billionaires— I steal from them— but… this one wasn't the same. He was only trying to help people, even if he had the outward personality of a complete asshole for a few years. I got him killed."

Pepper was trying to register so many things at once; she composed a reply three times before she got one that satisfied her. _I don't know what to say. And you steal from them?_

"Thing you don't know about me, Pepper," Selina said dryly. Pepper was startled— it was the first time that Selina had called her anything other than 'Potts'. "I dress up in a catsuit and commit burglaries in my spare time. I got in a little over my head and that billionaire helped me out of a tight spot. And I got him killed."

There was no emotion in her eyes or her voice. Her control was astounding.

But Pepper knew.

* * *

Each passing month brought them closer to doomsday. In that time, Pepper improved substantially in combat, started borrowing Selina's heels to wear more regularly and even ventured over to Wayne Tower to visit Miranda Tate and Lucius Fox at one point. They offered to let her borrow Lucius' laptop so that she could video chat with Tony, but she declined.

_I don't think that would work so well, _she typed, smiling grimly.

"Of course," acknowledged Miranda. "I am sorry. I… your condition is troubling, Miss Potts."

Pepper found herself preferring the caustic company of Selina over the sympathy from Tate. It bothered her that she could never tell if the petite woman was pretending or not. She clicked away from the two, exiting the Tower and marching back to Oldtown. It was strange, she reflected, being so comfortable wearing unprofessional clothes. It was strange to stand among the citizens of Gotham and feel like just another person trying to get through the day.

She was attacked while still two blocks away from the apartment. A few quick jabs brought one guy down (thankfully, he wasn't very big) but the fight with the larger brute was a blur and somehow ended with her stiletto in his throat. Her mouth moved— _Oh god— _as she realized why Selina preferred to wear heels during her heists.

She should've found someone to get help. She should've called the paramedics.

Pepper Potts walked away and pretended that nothing had happened.

* * *

Later, when she confessed to Selina and Jen of what she'd done, they just shrugged. By the look in both of their eyes, she knew that they'd been there before.

"It doesn't get easier," Selina told her quietly when they sparred the next day.

Pepper believed her.

* * *

The text message was short and blunt. It was also not from Tony.

_Help needed. Preparing for final days of the core decay. Trucks must be marked. –JG_

To her surprise, Miranda Tate was there as well. Pepper offered her a neutral smile by way of greeting, which was returned with just as much caution. While Gordon explained the plan, she broke the news to Tony: what she hadn't told him months ago, at the beginning.

_We're getting ready for the last few days. The bomb is a time-bomb. It's going off whether we want it to or not. If this doesn't work: I love you._

Then she turned her phone off. She wouldn't need it for this part of the operation.

She and Gordon were stationed on the south side, waiting for the truck to meander by. She was the one who aimed the tracking dart. Miranda Tate was aiming the other, on the west side. Pepper steeled herself mentally, similar to when she'd had to replace Tony's arc reactor. Thankfully, though, the dart hit straight on.

Unfortunately, they were captured moments later.

* * *

"Death, or exile?"

"Crane, if you think we're going out onto that ice willingly… you've got another thing coming."

Jonathan Crane shrugged. Pepper shuddered at the cool detachment in his face.

"Death, then."

The hammer fell, almost making her jump.

"Death!... by exile."

Was it just her imagination, or were her teeth chattering already?

* * *

Gordon and the other police officers spent about twenty minutes begging for her to be spared until Pepper herself put her foot down, glaring at them and shaking her head. She refused to cry, much as she wanted to. She'd done her part in saving an entire city; it was enough for her to just have been of use. It was such a contrast to all those times she waited for Iron Man to return.

They all flinched when the gun went off, signaling that they were to begin moving. Gordon was the first to step forward; Pepper was second. She'd removed her heels before walking out and was only wearing socks, but she felt numb all over and barely registered the cold. What she wouldn't have given for Malibu weather…

_Phut._

That lone sound, followed by several groans, shook her out of her stupor. Confused, she first exchanged glances with Gordon, then whirled around to stare at the unconscious forms of Bane's mercenaries. Out of nowhere, the police commissioner let out a long breath of air and something skidded across the ice towards them.

"Light it up."

Gordon did as ordered. A million questions were clamoring for attention in Pepper's head, but they all seemed to freeze when she beheld the Batman.

He seemed to half-blend with the shadows, a barely visible outline thanks to the flare that now illuminated the bat signal on the bridge. He was also every bit as intimidating as the papers had claimed. Pepper couldn't understand the outbreak of whoops and cheers from the policemen around her, but one voice did make her heart stop.

"I dunno, I thought he'd be taller."

Oh, how she wanted to shriek his name, slip on the ice and be caught by him like the klutz she used to be. Fact of the matter was that Pepper wasn't that klutz anymore. She just turned and raised an eyebrow at him, marveling at her own new level of control and quietly thanking Selina for it.

"What?" he asked, taken aback. "No snarky comeback? No screaming out my name and jumping me?"

Oh, how she wanted to say, wryly, 'In front of everyone?' But her Blackberry was off. Then, without warning, his arms were around her, his breath warming her shoulder as he buried his head there.

He was shaking.

"Damn it, Pep," he whispered. "You sure know how to scare a guy. That text… I almost had Jarvis prep the suit then and there. But I was struck by sudden inspiration."

He looked at her expectantly. Pepper stared back, suddenly feeling ashamed.

"Come _on," _he whined. "This is the part where you say, 'What ever did you do, Mr. Stark?'"

Pepper, not knowing what else to do, shook her head and made a slashing noise across her throat. When a blank look was all she received, she dug out her Blackberry, turned it on and texted, _I can't talk, Tony. My vocal cords were damaged when someone tried to strangle me months ago._

In that moment, she realized just how huge of a help Selina had been in coping with her problem. The woman had given her a focus, a drive: something to fixate her energies on so that she wouldn't have time to dwell on the loss of her voice. She'd been taught how to hold the issue away from her so that it didn't get to her. It became easier to talk about. It became easier to ignore.

Now, though, as she watched a million emotions cross Tony's face, her loss hit her the hardest it ever had. She gulped down the lump in her throat and pressed a hand to the place where she knew his arc reactor was, hoping he would understand.

He did— she saw the shift in his eyes. But he pulled her into an embrace again anyway.

* * *

_Batman is _Bruce Wayne?

"I know, surprised me too," admitted Tony. "But when you think about it, it makes sense. We're both billionaire playboys who take ourselves too seriously, so why can't we both be costumed heroes too? So when he showed up at my doorstep and said, 'I think your girlfriend is stuck in my city,' and offered a way there, how could I refuse? Wouldn't let me bring the suit though."

Pepper pursed her lips. _He had the right idea. It would've attracted too much attention._

"There we go again," he complained. "Why does everyone think I can't be subtle?"

"Maybe because you can't," Selina called as she passed by, clad in her full catsuit and safe-cracking goggles. Just as she said it, Pepper typed the same thing.

Surprisingly, Tony hadn't ogled Selina as soon as he saw her (though he later admitted that she had magnificent breasts, to which Pepper responded by jabbing her elbow into his stomach). Instead, he had turned away, muttering something about 'bad memories' and 'Russian spies'. Pepper had a sneaking suspicion that she knew exactly who he was referring to.

He had initially objected furiously to her participating in the day's events, but she convinced him after helping Selina take out a couple of gun-wielding mercenaries using only her hand-to-hand skills. She was sure that his lower jaw became completely detached and that it took him at least five minutes to pick it back up again. So there she was, preparing to head out with Gordon and plant the device from Fox that would block the signal to the bomb should the triggerman decide to detonate.

Tony was going to be firing weapons from the co-pilot seat in the Bat. Judging from the way his expression lit up like a kid in a candy store, he wasn't too upset about _that_ arrangement.

Selina and Batman departed, talking in low voices. Suddenly, Pepper remembered the story Selina had told her about that billionaire.

She smiled.

* * *

_I am _never _doing that again, _she typed to Gordon after they'd clambered out of the truck. It was going on her list, right up there with 'changing Tony's arc reactor'. She'd been so sure that she was going to die when they hurled off the precipice into the underpass, but they were somehow miraculously intact.

Somehow, Miranda's betrayal didn't surprise her all that much. She wasn't sure what was meant by the 'my father's work is done' comment just before she died, but it was clear that she was the orchestrator behind it all. They all watched (even Tony) with the same grim expressions while she smiled triumphantly.

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then, from Gordon: "What now?"

Batman was already moving, Selina hurrying after him. "What, you have a plan C?"

"If I can get it out over the bay, it should be enough to save the city."

"And _you're _going to be in there?"

"No autopilot."

Those words caused a sinking feeling in the pit of Pepper's stomach. Her heart went out to Selina, who looked more frustrated than she'd ever seen her in her life. Tony, who had been helping Gordon to attach a cable to the Bat, stepped up beside her.

"You could've gone anywhere in the world, but you came back here."

Pepper immediately sensed, with those words, that they were intruding on a private moment and began pulling Tony away, though not before witnessing Selina kissing Batman hard after calling herself and him suckers. Gordon wandered over to have one last conversation, prompting Pepper to follow.

"I still never got to thank you," the commissioner said. Pepper remembered— they'd been allies through all of this.

"Don't thank me," said Batman gruffly.

"You'll be a hero for this."

"A hero isn't someone who dresses up and fights crime," he replied. His next words would forever be imprinted in Pepper's mind: "A hero is someone who does something as simple as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended."

Pepper looked down when Tony's hand slipped into hers. The four of them stood in silent vigil as the Bat roared away. She closed her eyes and released a shuddering breath into the cold air as they waited, heads bowed. For the first time, she realized, Tony Stark actually seemed to be humbled by someone else. Later, he would say to her, "And another thing: we've both lost some important people."

When the distant boom echoed through Gotham, Pepper glanced over at Selina to see that the woman was giving nothing away. Her friend was the first to leave, marching over to the Batpod and zooming away. She didn't look back once.

_She'll be all right,_ she thought to herself. It was her way of saying goodbye.

She had no doubt that she wouldn't be seeing Selina again.

* * *

Malibu was foreign to her after five months in Gotham City. Still, she managed to slide into her role as co-CEO once again, even if it was more difficult without her voice. Tony had had Jarvis run a scan on her as soon as they arrived at his mansion. The AI confirmed what she had already suspected and accepted.

"I'm afraid Miss Potts did not receive proper medical attention for the damage. It is irreparable."

That night, for the first time, she allowed herself to cry. She made sure Tony wasn't around when she did it.

* * *

"Pepper," he said to her quietly one evening, "I think you're going through PTSD."

She acted like this didn't faze her, opting instead to raise an eyebrow. _I've just been in a few spots of trouble a few times. It's not like… Afghanistan._

"I disagree," he intoned. "You haven't said a single word about how you've really felt about the whole thing. God, Pepper, you haven't even_cried. _You keep going like everything's normal, but I know that it isn't. Trust me. I've been there."

She'd learned bluntness from Selina, too. _All right. I buried a razor edge stiletto in a thug's throat and left him to die._

She suspected that that wasn't even the real reason. The real reason, she knew, was that in being trapped in Gotham City for five months, she'd been forced to acknowledge that living with Tony Stark had been living in a bubble. Now that she'd been exposed to the world outside of the bubble, it was just too difficult for her to re-enter it. She was depressed because she could never return to the way life was. Not now. Probably not ever.

She hated it.

Somehow, she managed to type this all out onto her phone. It spilled out of her like a broken dam. Judging by the way he was studying her face, she wasn't doing a very good job of masking her emotions. She apologized over and over again, repeatedly stating, _I can't be the person you used to know anymore._

All he said in reply was, "You don't have to be. You're still _you, _you know."

She laughed silently. _Isn't the woman supposed to offer emotional reassurance, here?_

"Well, yes. Don't go questioning my masculinity, Potts. By the way, I think we need a vacation. How about Florence?"

_What—_

He interrupted her just as he might have if she were talking. "That settles it, then. We're definitely going to Florence for a week. It's not Venice, but what the hey."

Pepper slumped in her seat. Maybe going away would do her some good. Who knew?

* * *

When she looked across the café and saw Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle sitting together, looking like an ordinary couple, her heart nearly stopped.

Pepper slowly swiveled her head to fix Tony with a hawk-like glare. He smiled innocently. "Who're you looking at, Pep?"

Standing up, she marched away, intent on greeting her friend.

They ended up having wine back at Bruce and Selina's apartment. There, Pepper finally got her answers about what really happened to Rachel Dawes.

"He knew what it would do," explained Bruce, referring to the psychopath known only as the Joker. "He knew it would throw me off. He knew it would drive Harvey mad."

Though the knowledge was horrible, at least Pepper could finally get some closure regarding her old friend's death. As an added bonus, she now knew that Selina was happier than she'd ever seen the cat burglar. She knew when she saw the brunette give a small, contented smile while watching Bruce and Tony argue about who was more of a genius: Tony himself or Lucius Fox.

"Hey," Tony suddenly said on the jet ride back.

She looked at him.

"You know how people make up, like, really weird names for us as a couple? Like, Teepee and Pepperony and stuff?"

Cautiously, she nodded.

"I thought up one for them. Batcat."

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Tony beamed at her approval.

"By the way- you know the Hunger Games, right? Wanna know my name for Peeta and Katniss as a couple?"

She swatted at him with her purse. Inwardly, though, she was finally certain.

Things were going to be okay.


End file.
